Virtual desktops allow users to access and work off of their desktop computers remotely from other computing devices. For example, workers from home can log in to a cloud-based service and the work off of their work computer desktops as if they were in their office. To virtualize a desktop computer, a server-side program runs a “virtualized desktop” that accesses user interfaces, applications, files, and other software on the desktop computer. The virtualized desktop then makes this remotely accessed software available to other devices with the appropriate authentication credentials (e.g., usemame, password, token value, etc.). Users may authenticate themselves to the virtualized desktop to gain access to the desktop computer's software.
Conventional authentication mechanisms—like entering a usemame and password—are somewhat cumbersome and often are not worth the effort for rather menial uses of the remote desktop. For instance, users who may just want to view a document on the remote desktop while the user is away in a meeting may not wish to go through a complicated log-in process to the access the document, opting instead to wait until the user leaves the meeting and returns to the desktop. Or if the user does not have access to a virtualized desktop, the user may have to store the document on a portable piece of memory, such as a flash drive, that can be read by another computing device. Either way, the user experience is somewhat frustrated, dissuading users from interacting with the desktop-stored document unless the need to do so exceeds the extra steps of the virtual authentication process or use of the portable memory.